Brazil’s Rousseff and Lula to miss Rio opening ceremony

Rio de Janeiro, July 28 (IANS) Brazil’s suspended president Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor Luiz Inocio Lula da Silva announced that they would not attend the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games on August 5.

The press secretaries of both politicians told the Globonews TV station on Tuesday that they would not attend, due to disagreements with the interim government of President Michel Temer, reports Xinhua.

Rousseff was suspended from office on May 12 by the Senate, pending a full impeachment trial, which the former leader described as a “coup d’etat.”

She will be judged at the end of August for fiscal irregularities in the 2014 and 2015 federal budgets, and may be permanently impeached.

Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010, and Rousseff were the captains of Rio’s candidacy to win the Olympic Games in 2009.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) invited both presidents to attend, alongside all other living ex-presidents, but the Temer government ruled out letting Rousseff play any official part in the ceremony.

In a recent interview, Rousseff said she felt she had been “the mother of these Olympics” and Lula “the father”.